Tag Archives: Mike Slive

If you want to read a tongue bath about Mike Slive’s leadership, this article’s for you. The capper is this wonderful quote in which he explains the secret of his success:

“By definition, a conference has two seemingly incompatible components that have to operate simultaneously,” explains Slive, “(1) passionate competitive rivalries, and (2) a group of institutions that needs to come together as a single organization to strengthen each and every unit and the conference as a whole. We’ve had to try and balance that for almost 80 years, but only now is there an expectation that even in the pursuit of our individual goals, the conference needs to get stronger by moving forward together.”

In English, it’s very simple: whatever pays the most, that’s what he’s for.

Not surprisingly, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive opposes Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott’s suggestion of a football “plus one” championship game after the bowl season.

Slive said today the plus-one would narrow the postseason “in a way that’s not necessarily in the best interests of all of the conferences.”

Slive knows what’s best.

“It’s interesting because clearly what we did (with the SEC/Big 12 bowl) created a lot of thinking by a lot of people,” Slive said during an interview from the SEC baseball tournament. “I appreciate people thinking about that. But I think what’s in the best interest of college football is a four-team playoff. I think it’s better for everyone involved in the game.”

Here’s the thing. Slive says he’s willing to talk about the selection process. No doubt he is. Problem is whether anyone else is willing to listen to him. In the end, his choice may not be between a plus-one and a four-team playoff. If these people can’t reach a consensus, it may wind up being a choice between a plus-0ne and doing nothing. Which of those options would set Slive to drooling?

The ACC can’t even cheat better than the SEC. North Carolina got a bowl ban, Georgia Tech vacated its 2009 ACC title, Bowden lost too many wins to keep pace with Joe Paterno, and the jury’s out on what happens to Miami.

The SEC? South Carolina salvaged its 2010 SEC East title and its future despite NCAA violations, and Alabama and LSU staged the first BCS Championship Game between two teams on NCAA probation.

Congratulations are in order for Kentucky. For the whole basketball thing, of course, but don’t forget this: Kentucky is no longer the 11th-best program in the SEC – or 12th, if we believe Vanderbilt can continue building upon James Franklin’s debut. Yes, congratulations: you did it, Kentucky. Today, after Mike Slive and the league’s decision-makers added Missouri and Texas A&M, the Wildcats are the 13th-best program in the 14-team SEC – or 14th, dead last, under the same conditions as above.

The latter point first: The CBS broadcast contract isn’t regional; it’s national. Technically speaking, the SEC isn’t adding any new eyeballs to the deal by bringing Missouri and Texas A&M to the table. So CBS isn’t acting impressed. You know what would impress CBS? A nine-game conference schedule.

And on point the first? Well, if you’re Mike Slive and you’re used to getting your way, there’s only one response you’ve got to CBS’ recalcitrance. Your own network! (Plus, that probably feeds into a few presidents’ egos who want to have what their peers in the Big Ten and Pac-12 already boast of having.) Problem is, it’s not really much of a threat, as CBS is hardly interested in what the SEC will be throwing on its own network. There’s also the issue of how much schools like Florida, which makes a good deal off of Tier 3 rights, are going to be willing to subordinate their interests to the greater good. (Answer: not very, thanks.)

All of this does make me wonder how much due diligence Slive had performed with the networks before embarking on the SEC’s expansion journey. The jury is still out on how good a job he did negotiating the existing broadcast deals.

UPDATE:Here’s the full SBJ piece. If all the SEC is talking about spinning off into its own network is what it had already sold off before, then it’s certainly a doable deal. As for CBS, this is the nut graf:

CBS still will carry the same number of football games each season as part of its package, and network executives are arguing that schools such as Alabama, Florida and LSU—not Missouri and Texas A&M—drive the value of the conference. Without additional inventory, CBS’s stance has been that it shouldn’t pay more solely because the conference added two new schools. [Emphasis added.]

You could argue – and CBS probably has – that, if anything, expansion waters down the inventory, because sticking with an eight-game schedule means that some of the conference’s premier draws will play each other less often.

South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier rarely comes to the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla., empty handed. Last year, he used the opportunity to propose that coaches should be allowed to pay into a fund that would go to the players. (Which conveniently minimized the headlines for another bout of Stephen Garcia-reinstatement-related drama.) This year, Spurrier has a more practical idea to discuss.

He thinks the SEC should choose its division champions in football based on division record instead of overall conference record. “Your division champ should be decided on division games. Last year, it wasn’t fair for Tennessee and Florida,” Spurrier said. “They both played LSU and Alabama. Us and Georgia didn’t. So, us or Georgia almost had to win the division simply because of the schedule.”

Good luck on getting anyone to pay attention to that, Coach Evil (Genius). The new bowl game – more accurately, the implications of the new bowl game – is likely to dominate the discussions. And what time isn’t spent on that is going to be directed towards another big subject.

“What’s going to take the day is discussion on the conference’s position on the four-team playoff,” SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom said this past week. “The commissioners were charged with going back to their conferences, with each conference stating a position on their preference. There will be a lot of discussion on that.”

It sounds like there will be plenty of that.

Whether the SEC concurs with the Big Ten proposal remains to be seen, but the SEC no longer appears to be fighting the suggestion that all four teams must be conference champions.

“What if the No. 1 team, the No. 7 team, the No. 11 team and the No. 17 team happened to be conference champions?” Alabama coach Nick Saban said recently in Mobile. “You are not really getting the top four teams. If you look at all the years when we’ve had issues with who plays in the championship game, there is an odd team that is left out.

“In 2003, when I was at LSU, USC got left out. Auburn got left out when they were undefeated [in 2004]. Those are the times when people start screaming.”

I’m impressed he noticed.

Seriously, that’s some very major stuff to hash through. Add to that the decision about the size of the conference schedule and you’ve got a very full plate for the SEC. Slive has effectively buried Spurrier’s lede, so to speak.

In reaction to yesterday’s news about the new Big 12-SEC postseason game, Paul Myerberg indulges in some romantic thinking.

This is a crisis moment for college football. It’s also a look-in-the-mirror moment for those who dictate the game’s ebb and flow: either the power-brokers – a Mike Slive, a Jim Delany, a Larry Scott, a Bob Bowlsby – can cater to their constituents, like a politician aiming for reelection, or they can do what’s best for the game itself.

What’s best for college football is equality. Don’t be scared of that word: it doesn’t mean socialism, and it doesn’t necessarily mean parity. It means that deserving teams get what they deserve; it means that regardless of the size of your stadium, your career winning percentage, your TV contract or the name on the front of your jersey, you get a seat at the table.

The new system, when in place two years down the road, should ensure that each of every program in the F.B.S. can play for the national championship. It must, for the sake of college football itself. Anything less would be a continuation of our current, flawed system.

First of all, there’s a real danger of getting way ahead of ourselves with this. All I feel confident about saying right now is congratulations to the two conferences for pulling off a power play: the Big 12 nailed the ACC badly and Slive has himself a nice bargaining chip to toss in when Delany’s constituents figure out what they really want besides Rose Bowl Forevah! Besides that, who knows. It’s too early to call this one item a game-changer.

That all being said, in response to Myerberg’s dream, sorry, not gonna happen. Or at least not in the way he envisions. There are too many wheels in motion, too many forces in play for a 120 or so-school FBS to survive. Things like increased scholarship payments, multi-year scholarships and the end of AQ status for the postseason each on their own may not seem like much, but together they all point towards a sea change in D-1.

A separation between the NCAA haves and have-nots is coming. The only question for some is on which side of the divide they’re going to fall. Jim Delany has never been fond of sharing. It’s ironic that the new postseason may turn out to be the vehicle that gets him his wish.

Quote Of The Day

“Being a student at Georgia and playing ball, I’ve definitely grown, widened my horizons and experienced things I never thought I would. I feel like I’ve grown on and off the field, and the university prepared me for that. I’ve done some awesome things and met some awesome people. I’ll definitely be back to finish my schoolwork, because that was a big priority for me and my family and weighed heavily on my decision. I know football won’t last forever. It’ll be great to come back and get that degree, so I can tell my kids about it one day.” — Roquan Smith, AJ-C, 3/7/18